


Blood Moon

by ironwreath (broodingmischief)



Series: dungeons & dragons [5]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Developing Friendships, Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory, Found Family, Gen, Internal Conflict, Motherhood, Multi, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Personal Growth, Trauma, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broodingmischief/pseuds/ironwreath
Summary: Snippets into Genevieve; orc blood hunter of the Order of the Lycan. Mother and monster hunter. Set in an original universe.Cross posted from Tumblr.Art of Evie here.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Series: dungeons & dragons [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638913





	1. Malaise

**Author's Note:**

> Any number between brackets indicates the session the fic takes place around. If there are no brackets, it takes place before or after the game or at an ambiguous point in time between sessions. These ficlets are in chronological order of the game's events and character's lives, not in the order I wrote them.
> 
> Evie is a backup character for Surina from Glacial, who's my main character for the campaign.
> 
> "Midway upon the journey of our life  
> I found myself within a forest dark,  
> For the straightforward pathway had been lost." Inferno: Canto 1, Dante Alighieri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie feels unwell.

Evie’s world looked and felt like a dream - it had a peach fuzz around the edges and was tinted with white. Objects swam in and out of focus and her hands stilled in warm, sudsy water, floating.

She started when the cool press of skin met her forehead – the back of a hand. Adam’s. She glanced to her right and the world sharpened into clarity around him.

“You look flushed,” he said, lowering a plate to the counter instead of the pantry. “I wanted to check.”

“And what’s the diagnosis?”

“You’re warming up. No fever yet but you’re on your way, I think.”

She slipped her hands free of the sink and wrapped them in a towel. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “I've felt strange all week.” She leaned back on her stool with a sigh, curling a hand over the back of her neck. There was an _itch_ inside her, but nothing that could be scratched. 

Evie’s expertise was monsters. She had some medicinal knowledge, but not enough to determine if her potential sickness was a disease or some weird cold. She figured she had the strength to fend it off, but if she didn’t, she could see a cleric. There seemed little cause for worry beyond a general concern for a partner's well-being. 

Adam gazed on in mild concern, waiting.

“I might be coming down with something,” she confirmed with a curl of the mouth. “Maybe no more kisses for now.”

He smiled plaintively. “It might be a bit late for that if you’ve felt off all week. Go to bed – I’ll finish up here.”

“Still want to share a bed with me, do you?”

“I never said that. Go on, now.”


	2. Scent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie comes to with amnesia.

The forest floor was not where Evie laid to rest.

She woke with a jerk and a gasp. Blood, blood was the first thing she noticed – not the sight, but the smell. It was as dense as if it took root inside her nose and wafted straight into her head and her skull pounded on every tattered inhale, hunched around it. Nearby fauna scattered. 

The side of her lying against the dirt was cool while the rest of her burned with the same fever that plagued her all week. She shuddered against a brush of the wind, knees curling inwards. Dawn’s first light peeked through the trees of a clearing, but the peace of a new morning felt incongruous with her awakening.

Earth. Brush. Bark, pines, fur. Other scents weaseled in around the blood. Did everything always smell so strongly or was it the sense her addled mind clung to?

She struggled onto her elbows. Her bones ached like she’d grown several inches, but she hadn’t. She saw the source of the blood – it caked her arms up to the elbows, dried and crusted, but still fresh enough to be from within the last day. It either happened overnight or she had a full day unaccounted for.

Whose? She hesitantly touched her tongue to it. Humanoid. Not a monster. She hurriedly checked herself for wounds and found nothing grievous. Everything that hurt most was inside her.

She pulled herself to her feet but crumpled to her knees by a nearby brook. Her reflection looked every bit as dishevelled as she thought – hair loose, frazzled and mottled with twigs and leaves. Her shirt was torn and scuffs adorned her skin like she’d had a romp in a bed of rocks.

More blood painted her face, neck, and torso. She swallowed. She spent many a time covered in viscera, but she always knew the source, the hows and why and when. Yet it brought some clarity – she was still in the same body with the same brain. It was Evie’s eyes that stared back, even as alarmed, confused, and frightened as they were. She could solve the mystery.

She broke her reflection with a plunge of her arms into the icy water. She cleaned up, tied her hair, then set off to track her way home. 


	3. Zenith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie gains control over her transformation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was for promptober 2020 but I only just wrote this recently.

Even as Evie trained with Jensen, she blacked out on her first full moon after her inauguration, the beast within her clawing its way out and erasing the consciousness that made Evie, Evie. The difference was she woke up safe and sound with everybody around her equally unscathed, but she still almost wept out of frustration. 

Every month her body was a ticking clock, the moon an enemy at her heels. The thinner it was, the more relaxed she felt, but the more it filled out into a full belly of itself, the more frayed her nerves became. She’d spent months running from herself and she didn’t know how to stop.

The second full moon she remembered bits and pieces, catching scraps of someone else’s torn up parchment thrown to the wind. It was better than nothing. Jensen commended her. 

“You mentioned a daughter,” he said, squatting next to her while she regained her composure at the crack of dawn. The clock reset. “You want her back, right?”

“More than anything."

“Think of her. Anything of your life before you were a werewolf, think of. You need to bridge the physical and the mental.” He cracked a crescent half-smile and tapped his temple with a finger. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

She nodded. She trusted in him – she didn’t have much if she didn’t.

* * *

On the third month of her training, the moon at its zenith, the sun set, its light and the wash of colours vanishing with it. Her form rippled and expanded, fur bursting from every pore.

She played memories in her mind: of her daughter sitting and playing on her lap, the touch of her late partner’s hand on her face, the taste of brew with her friends from the Wayfarer’s Cut. Those thoughts stopped her from bursting too far, reeled her back in and let some of the air out. She braced herself for blackness to descend over her vision, but it never came. She remained herself, in another body. 

She shakily extended her arms, half-expecting her control to leave her in the dust again. Jensen and a few other order members circled her, ready to contain her, but she didn’t feel threatened; she felt seen, protected.

She flexed a hand, marvelled at the length and sharpness of her claws. She reached up to pat over her ears – further up on her head, pointed and soft. Her hair was still there! She jerked around to look at her tail. It swayed back and forth in greeting. 

“Well, you haven’t torn off on a rampage yet, so I assume that means you’re conscious,” Jensen said, not fully relaxing, but looking less ready to wrestle her to the ground. 

“I’m me, I think.” The words were strange out of her elongated snout, and her voice was deeper and rougher around the edges, like sandpaper. Her tusks were still in place, though, and they brought her a modicum of joy. “The night’s still young.”

“You were always in there,” Jensen said. “We just had to pull you out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing & posting this before I've written Evie ever meeting Jensen or what she did for months: lmao


	4. Waif

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie is reunited with her daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For promptober 2020.

“Mama!”

“Ida,” Evie cried.

Jensen set the wriggling half-orc girl on her feet. She’d grown in Evie’s absence and her heart doubled down on its aches and pains. Her little boots hit the ground in a clumsy, waddling run straight for her, arms outstretched and tears blotching her cheeks.

Evie fell into a crouch to meet her. Ida threw her arms around her neck, wailing to the heavens.

Evie held tight. Tears clouded her eyes as well, but she didn’t want them to spill, at least not in excess. Ida needed her reassurance now more than ever. She rocked her, uttering a small, wet gasp of joy and relief. Ida would no longer be a waif orphaned by her mother’s lycanthropy.

She glanced up at Jensen to mouth a silent ‘thank you.’ He nodded, gave a weary smile, and passed her with a hand on the shoulder.


	5. Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of Evie's most treasured items causes her pain.

Ida crawled across the tent floor and crossed over Evie’s legs into her lap, her stuffed sphinx cradled strategically under one arm. Evie sat cross-legged on the ground, leaving ample space for her daughter to fill the gap. She curled into the crook of her leg and rested her ear on her thigh, drowsy from dinner and stress and the general labour of being three amidst life-changing events.

They were set to leave by boat in two sleeps. Evie dreaded the voyage. Until they reached the Copper Isles, stress would continue to be their faithful companion.

Evie pet her hair with a hand – it nearly eclipsed her head – and held a pouch in the other. It came with Ida when Jensen collected her from Elbanas; Evie had yet to sort through it. She reached inside and abruptly snatched her fingers out with a hiss.

“Mama?” Ida asked, sitting up.

“Mommy’s fine,” she assured, shaking her hand. “It’s something in the bag.” Her fingers showed no signs of damage, but an unpleasant pins-and-needles sensation scattered just under the surface.

Evie overturned the pouch and dumped its contents. Two small trinkets landed on the tarp: a child’s spoon and a carved wooden fox corded into a necklace, an old gift from her aunt. She half expected a knife or acid, was irritated they’d let her daughter carry around something that could injure her, but both items were harmless.

On the spoon’s handle were Ida’s initials, ILE. She leaned closer. Its silver coat glimmered with the light of the lamp she’s set up in the corner. Right—silver.

Using the pouch as a barrier, she scooped up the spoon and laid it on her palm. She slowly transferred it to her adjacent hand, flipped – her skin shrieked with discomfort, like she’d grabbed a fistful of poison ivy and was inviting blisters to make themselves at home. She held fast, watching the skin stain with an unnatural, agitated glow. It grew too much – she dropped it again. The mark remained, burned into her skin like a brand, then slowly began to fade.

Her chest ached more fiercely than her hand – at the memories of feeding Ida with Adam, but that an object – a _material_ – so insubstantial could cause her grief. She’d been shoved into a silver cage, half delirious, and somehow, this was worse. She was conscious enough to recognize her fragility.

It was a poor lesson in front of her daughter, holding onto what hurt. She was sticking her hand into a fire even though it burned when all instinct told her to pull away, but it was a hurt specifically tailored to her.

“Why does it hurt?” Ida asked. “Will it hurt me?”

“It won’t hurt you,” Evie promised. “It’s yours.”

Ida reached over her leg to pick it up, then fumbled for the pouch and tucked it back inside. Evie sighed. Would she even remember in a year? Ten?

“Don’t touch it anymore,” Ida said. Simple as that. 


	6. Blot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genevieve trains with Jensen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For promptober 2020.

Evie dug the claw of her thumb into the pad of her finger until she felt it puncture. She’d gone through all four fingers and then thrice again, so she was used to the sensation – her skin patched itself up quicker than it used to.

She held her finger aloft and a single bead of blood fell to the blade of her battleaxe. It landed next to the others; some dried, some equally fresh. She inhaled through her nose and focused, her brow furrowing.

She tried to connect the blood inside her with the blood on her axe, will it even though it was outside her body. There was a thread she had to tap into that was sewn through most living creatures, and hers was powerful, easy to find – the augmentation in her was how she felt it at all. Sweat dripped past her eye.

The blot of blood wobbled, then flattened and distended like a net, encasing her entire weapon in a crimson film before bursting into roaring flames. She shot Jensen a triumphant, exhilarated grin, twirling the axe in hand. He smiled, too, lips peeling back to show the barest hint of teeth.

“Good,” he said. “Now let’s see if you can do it again.” 


	7. Euphoric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie experiences the Feywild for the first time.

[119]

When Evie first had access to books again following her spiral into lycanthropy, she did what any sensible monster hunter did: she read about them.

She briefly researched them before the contract that led to her catching the curse, but she read about how best to kill them – silvered weapons and which parts of their hides were softest, not what spread it, their origins, or what types there were besides wolves. Her mistake.

She learned they were technically fey; they were strongest in the Feywild. It didn’t prepare her for how _euphoric_ it felt to drop into the plane through the crackling maw of the portal. 

Everything in her body grew loud, but not to the point of being overwhelming – she existed at a perfect buzz, like she was a tuning fork struck and used. Her blood sang, both the magic infused in her but her lycanthropy, too, like she and the plane were in harmony. Smells were crisp, easily determined. She could tell the difference between the wind rustling the leaves versus the breeze cutting through the grass. 

A distant part of her wanted to stop Puzzle from hitting the ground by catching her, but she rose out of her crouch distracted while her goblin companion smacked into the grass beside her.

She felt alive and refreshed, more prepared to tackle the task ahead. She would put an end to the kidnapped children – she couldn’t risk losing her daughter. Ida’d dealt with enough trauma for a lifetime. Nobody knew how they’d get back, but it was a distant concern for her. If they could stop whoever was responsible for the missing kids, it was enough. 

“Alright, where are those lil’ shits,” Danyla said, shaking hair from her face with a flick of her head. 

“Let’s get hunting,” Evie agreed, mouth twisting upwards.


	8. Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie scares the children she's rescuing.

[121]

Evie ducked into the back room of the warehouse. She was used to lowering herself through doors instead of walking through them, hybrid form or not.

The children reacted viscerally. Tired but alive, they squirmed towards the far corners of their imprisonment, cages woven from wood and vines into shape. Like everything in the town before it, the cages were beginning to rot, riven with cracks and brittle with decay.

Evie knew how she looked. Massive, hulking, sharp-toothed and amber-eyed, all before she drenched herself in blood up to the elbow with claws that still crackled and sparked with lightning. She saw no doubt in their minds that she worked with the hag who put them there.

She could only see her daughter reacting the same way, in abject terror, that creatures that looked like her mother would hurt her. Werewolves begot fear, in adult and child alike. 

“Amelia?” she called, and her voice sounded even harsher than usual, grated like pebbles. The children didn’t reply, quaking.

Her hand relaxed and the energy dissipated. She could change back – but she didn’t know if they were in the clear yet, and she’d make the most out of her altered body as possible, even at the cost of their trust. She approached.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she tried to console them. Again, no change. She sighed. Their cage doors were torn off with ease. 


	9. Tender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie learns Victor is a werewolf.

[130]

Evie caught Victor before he could pull his shirt back on for their lakeside walk. She tucked her hair behind her ear and bent, planting her lips against his shoulder where the skin was marked in the crescent-shaped grooves of a bite wound. He went pink, a flush that claimed his ears and swept all the way down his neck, but smiled at her. 

Most believed her when she listed a random monster if they asked after the bite on her thigh. And even when she divulged the truth, they assumed she resisted the curse. As someone who spent her time outside the circle of nobility and politicians, she could afford the risk. 

Conscious of that, she was flattered beyond words Victor chose her hook to hang his trust upon. She hadn’t slept with another werewolf before, not that she could recall – she promised herself to make it special for him if intimacy was scarce in his life.

She had to tread carefully around tender feelings. Anyone she was fond of could quickly turn into a victim at the end of her claws, romantic or otherwise.

“Don’t worry,” she teased, rising and offering her arm. “You’ll see mine later.”


End file.
